So Gatling Guns Still Can't Intercept Missiles

[Darkaiser]

I knew from previous testing that the old stock gatlings pretty much suck at intercepting missiles. I figured that the new ball turrets would be better because we can squeeze 4-6 guns into them in a tight group. As it turns out, they STILL suck.

I took the vanilla Earthlike station and mounted 4 of the OG gatlings on one side plus three ball turrets in three different flavors (one each with 2 guns, 4 guns, and 6 guns). I set up a tower just within missile range with half a dozen missile launchers and an antenna on it. I flew back to base, connected with the missile tower and converted one launcher to a pirate faction. Six missiles were fired in short order. Every single gun missed. Not one intercept out of half a dozen guns.

In the vanilla game at least, the only defenses against enemy missiles are armor and blowing up the enemy before he gets into missile range.

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, it was bugged (Missiles not targeted) and got fixed about 3 years ago but it may be bugged again, well we got a lot of small bugs here and there since the last major.

Have you verified the community reports?

I will go use the Portal search tool, be back in a few ...

[Dan2D3D]

I see only one recent report (2 years old) and it was for the other way around :

>> Turrets do not stop firing at missiles <<

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/turrets-do-not-stop-firing-at-missiles

And seems they fixed it again reading the Dev comment in so they may have stopped it a bit too much!?

[Dan2D3D]

Reading the other comments in I recommend to send them a world with setps to reproduce so they can try right away.

= They like it a lot when we send them a world save with bug in ready for testing.
-> Just have to publish the save on the Workshop and paste the link in a new Portal Bug Report.

OR

Share the Workshop item link with Steps on how to reproduce here and I will send it to the SE Team for you.

[Darkaiser]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Reading the other comments in I recommend to send them a world with setps to reproduce so they can try right away.

= They like it a lot when we send them a world save with bug in ready for testing.
-> Just have to publish the save on the Workshop and paste the link in a new Portal Bug Report.

OR

Share the Workshop item link with Steps on how to reproduce here and I will send it to the SE Team for you.

Cool. Since I have a lot of other crap in that world unrelated to the issue, I'll generate a clean one with minimum number of mods and a clearer test. Thanks.

[Darkaiser]

Here is a link to the world where I did more tests today. I tried to be through.

Let me know if there are any questions.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198012711696/myworkshopfiles/?appid=244850

[Dan2D3D]

Ok, this one :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2749729438

Step to reproduce would be what?

OR

Just Gatling Guns Can't Intercept Missiles?
(no steps needed)

[Dan2D3D]

Oh! I see you have added info on the item Page!

[Dan2D3D]

Just a last question, what OG means?

(sorry English is not my first so I have to ask for more details to be sure)

[Darkaiser]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Just a last question, what OG means?

(sorry English is not my first so I have to ask for more details to be sure)

OG is Bad English shorthand for Original. Sorry, I neglected to take into account the fact that there might be language issues.

Since the description box for the upload is limited to 1000 characters, let me go into a little more depth.

1) I tried to turn off everything that might distract the targeting like weather, sun rotation, and so on. I left all of the weapons to shoot at 'enemy' just in case enemy missiles counted for that.

2) In my tests, I would convert one missile turret to Pirate at a time. I didn't think it was fair to have a bunch of missiles coming in all at once. The ranges were set so the defense guns should be able to see incoming missiles at close to max range. I think I also left the random rotation thing off so I'd know the guns were facing the incoming missiles.

3) The Decoys were simply to keep the missiles from blowing up the turrets. I figured that they could simulate a ship's antenna or other vital component. The heavy armor wall was to prevent the missiles from completely destroying the base in just a few hits.

4) I varied the custom turrets to see if one combination of weapons worked better than others. The one with 8 gatlings on it was an over the top attempt. I figured if 8 gatlings can't shoot down a missile then something is wrong.


My results were terrible Out of a cluster of 60 missiles (6 from the launcher before it reloaded and allowing it to reload ten times) the most I intercepted was three. The average was 1-2 and on a couple of passes I didn't hit any. If we can't shoot down enemy missile from a single launcher with TEN defense guns, then missiles become overpowered in my opinion.

I appreciate you asking me for the saved game test I used. I have a history in destructive testing and finding out what does and doesn't work.

Let me know if you need anything else.

[Dan2D3D]

Great! I will add all this to my community report.

But I still recommend you to do the Portal Bug report so the SE programmers can chat with you if needed and I will not be alone reporting.

-> We get the hotfix faster the more report they receive.


Edit

Support Portal = https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc
(create "Bug report" or "Request help"(Private) or "Feedback"(Petition) on the Portal)

Note
All may use the Support Email to report the bugs found if they prefer :
Email = [e-mail]

[Darkaiser]

I noticed that a bug report from error404 already existed on this subject so I up-voted it and left a comment and the link to the test. The report is entitled "Inconsistent missile interception" in case you want to give it a boost.

I'll look forward to seeing if anything comes of this. Keen has been praised by modders lately for being cooperative but their track record on bugs is...not the best.

Thanks for listening.